Lee Jung-hee was due to turn 60 next year, but with the abolition of the traditional age-counting system in South Korea, this housewife from Seoul has become a year younger. And she is delighted.

“It’s a good feeling,” this woman told AFP. “For people like me, who have to turn 60 next year, it feels like you’re still young,” he jokes.

South Korea is the last country in East Asia to still use an age calculation method that stipulates that children are one year old at birth.counting pregnancy as part of his life.

With this system, everyone ages at the turn of the year instead of their birthday, so a baby born on December 31 will be two years old on January 1.

But starting Wednesday, the country will officially adopt the international system that calculates people’s ages by date of birth, making all South Koreans one or two years younger.

“It’s confusing when a foreigner asks me how old I am because I know they mean international age, so I have to do some calculations,” office worker Hong Suk-min told AFP.

After thinking for a while, Hong clarifies: According to the international system, he is 45 years old, and according to the traditional Korean method, he is 47 years old.

The official change will have a limited impact in practice as many administrative aspects, such as the age in the passport, the minimum age for criminal prosecution or the retirement age, already used the international system.

But the government is confident that this will clear up confusion such as the elderly who are convinced that they can already receive the old-age pension based on their Korean age.

complex calculation

“There is a difference between the age used by Koreans in their daily lives and their legal age, and this can lead to various legal disputes,” government law minister Lee Wan-kyu told AFP.

This minister responsible for checking the change opened a briefing on Monday to explain to journalists how to know his age.

“Subtract the year of your birth from the current year. If your birthday is already over, this is your age. If your birthday hasn’t passed yet, subtract one to find your age,” he explained.

Other issues, such as the school year, the start of mandatory military service or the minimum drinking age, will continue to be governed by a different system known as “year of age,” which will remain in effect for now, Lee said.

This means that anyone born in 2004, be it January or December, can be called up for military service starting January 1, 2023, the year they celebrate their 19th birthday.

Still, the government is open to revising this system depending on how the current changes go, the minister said.

“Age really matters”

“Age really matters” in South Korean culture, anthropologist Mo Hyun-joo told AFP, because it influences social status and determines what titles and honors you should use with others.

Koreans often use words like “unni” and “oppa,” meaning older sister or older brother, respectively, instead of names in conversation, he explains.

For this reason, the “age-year” system is used in schools so that all students in a class are officially the same age and this distinction between them need not be used.

In any case, this hierarchical culture has been “somewhat neutralized” by age and the international counting system is becoming more common in schools, says this anthropologist.